“When Theodor Adorno famously asserted that writing poetry after Auschwitz was barbaric, it was because he understood that a pervasive, deliberate obfuscation of words was inextricably connected with the Nazi program. A systematic misuse of words allowed the German populace to tell themselves lies and comforting stories. For Adorno, to do anything to obfuscate the truth in speech or writing is far more than improper: it is to implicitly participate in the same progress that made the Holocaust possible.”
[…]
“But Adorno’s admonition about poetry rests on a fundamentally incorrect assumption. Poems are not where the meaning and directness of language are hidden from us. To write them is not barbaric, but the contrary. Poems are the place where the actuality of language and of life is most made available. And it is up to us not to evade it.”
-Matthew Zapruder (Why Poetry)